Sunday, January 29, 2006

We used a recipe from "The Toddler's Busy Book," which I got for Christmas. An plus to making your own play-dough is that making it is actually a fun activity for the toddler. A minus is the large mess left in our kitchen afterward, but then, what's another mess in this house? It actually wasn't that hard to sweep up a bunch of flour.

Compared to commercial play-do, this batch is not quite as stiff. So when I made a little dog or something, then tried to move it to the other side of the table, it often fell apart. It also seems a bit messier than commercial play-dough, leaving more little crumbs or smudges on the table when you're done. They wiped right off with a damp cloth, though. It does smell better than commercial play-dough. I know it's supposed to be cheaper to make your own, but I have no idea what the price comparison is. On Amazon, you can buy 20 oz. of different-colored PlayDoh for $6. We probably made about 20 ounces of one color, I guess.

The marbled color you see is because Nutmeg wanted to add orange food coloring after the dough was already cooked. Sadly, after I played with the dough with another 2-year-old while babysitting last night, the orange blended in and the whole thing became an olive drab color.

Combine water, oil, salt, cream of tartar, and food coloring in a saucepan and heat until warm. Remove from heat and add flour. Stir, then knead until smooth. The cream of tartar makes this dough last 6 months or longer, so resist the temptation to omit this ingredient if you don't have it on hand. Store this dough in an airtight container or a Ziploc freezer bag.

(recipe is copyrighted by Trish Kuffner)

Next time we'll try a different kind. The book has oatmeal playdought, uncooked playdough, peanut butter playdough, salt playdough, kool-aid playdough, as well as a bunch of kinds of clay.